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Published on October 22, 2005 - Ranarith ‘did not touch chickens’; human-to-human transmission cover-up alleged
Seven-year-old Ranarith Benphad contracted bird-flu from his father, who died from the virus two days ago, the boy’s family insisted yesterday. Officials at Siriraj Hospital, where Ranarith has been treated since Wednesday, said the boy was infected by the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus. He became the second person after his father, Bang-orn Benphad, 48, to contract bird-flu this year. Somorn Benphad, Bang-orn’s brother who lives in the same house as the rest of the family, said Ranarith was not allowed to touch chickens. He said the boy wandered around when his father cooked but never touched the food himself. “The father and son spent a lot of time together,” he said. “My brother [Bang-orn] took his son to bed with him every night, even after he was sick. Everybody in my family believes my brother passed the disease to his son.” Somjit Thongrasmi, Bang-orn’s sister, denied a statement made by a senior public health official claiming that the boy helped his father kill infected chickens. In an attempt to rule out human-to-human transmission in this case, Paichit Warachit, director-general of the Medical Science Department, said he tested the gene sequence of the virus from Bang-orn and found that it had not yet mutated to enable it to pass easily between humans. “We compared the virus from Bang-orn with the specimen we collected from people who died of H5N1 last year and found that there were no significant changes of the virus gene,” he told The Nation. Virapong Kriengsinyos, director of the Thai Holistic Health Foundation, said human-to-human transmission could occur even when the virus had not mutated. He cited the case of a highly probable daughter-to-mother transmission in Kamphaeng Phet province last year. However, Senator Nirund Pitakwatchara said an independent lab test should be conducted to cross-check the results from the Medical Science Department. He said the agency was under the command of the government and it tended to downplay the issue, as seen from the attempt to cover up the first round of bird-flu outbreak in late 2003 and early 2004. Virapong agreed, urging the Medical Science Department to send Bang-orn’s specimen to the World Health Organisation (WHO) for testing. “Government agencies have lost public trust in handling the bird-flu crisis,” he said. “We need to hear what independent organisations like the WHO have to say about the mutation of the virus and its potential human-to-human transmission.” Bang-orn became ill and saw a doctor on October 15. He was hospitalised two days later and died on Wednesday. His son was taken to a local hospital on Monday and referred to Siriraj Hospital after Bang-orn was suspected of contracting bird flu. Though he denied the possibility of human-to-human transmission, Siriraj Hospital director Dr Prasit Watanapha ordered blood tests from Bang-orn’s relatives. Bang-orn’s remains will be cremated today in Kanchanaburi’s Phanom Thuan district. Somjit said her relatives were upset. They believe doctors and public health officials tried to cover up the facts surrounding Bang-orn’s illness instead of disclosing that he died of bird flu and warning the relatives to be alert. She said the officials sealed his body in plastic and ordered the relatives to cremate him quickly even though they denied that he died of the flu. It was only a day after Bang-orn’s death that he was diagnosed with the deadly disease. Somjit said that even now officials don’t want to admit that the virus can be transferred between humans and continue to insist that the boy was infected because he helped his father kill infected chickens. It’s simply not true, she said. Prasit said he could not say for sure if this was a case of human-to-human transmission because the boy might have contracted the disease from the environment rather than from his father. Public Health Minister Suchai Charoenratanakul visited the boy yesterday and said that his condition was improving. He said the child had no fever or inflammation of the lungs. However, Prasit said the boy and his relatives had to be quarantined for 21 days as required by the WHO. Bang-orn and his son became infected as the Public Health Ministry hailed the effectiveness of its bird-flu surveillance programme. Surapong Tanthanasrikul, chief public health officer of Kanchanaburi province, said officials and volunteers had worked hard since last year to impose strict measures to monitor and prevent the virus among the residents of Phanom Thuan district. He insisted that most of the residents were well informed about how to protect themselves. The man died because he disobeyed warnings that touching dead chickens was dangerous, he said. This doesn’t mean the residents were not informed or the safety measures were dropped, he said. A report by the Department of Disease Control’s bureau of epidemiology showed that 1,109 people in 66 provinces were suspected of contracting the deadly virus between January 1 and October 19. They were closely monitored under a surveillance programme initiated by the department. Bang-orn’s infection was the first to be confirmed. Chatrarat Kaewmorakot, Nantiya Tangwisutijit |